“Can a protein originally found in jellyfish improve your memory?”

Apparently not, according to the Federal Trade Commission. What advertising BS will we fall for next?

Aside from the benefits or lack of benefits of a supplement like Prevegen, how can anyone believe we can fight aging with supplements and other anti-aging products? Maybe we can slow aging, but we can’t stop it.

We will age, and we will die for sure— 100 percent. No matter how much synthetic jellyfish protein we consume.

The anti-aging industry is a money-grab to rake in the dough from the ever-increasing population of seniors who are worried about dementia and our wrinkles and turkey necks. Why don’t pharmaceutical companies target seniors with ads about healthy, natural foods instead of supplements synthesized from them?

Money.

They can’t make money from recommending dietary changes to seniors or jellyfish farming. One of the best ways to improve your health as a senior is the advice Michael Pollan gave:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Eat food, not supplements or vitamins, don’t overeat, and eat lots of vegetables. Eat like this for your remaining years, stay away from junk food, and drink moderately or not at all, and you’ll age for sure, but you’ll feel much better while you’re aging.

Pollen’s advice is basically the advice my mom, Grace, gave me when I was 13. Even though in 1957 we were inundated with ads for Fruit Loops and Chef Boyardee canned spaghetti, her dinners always began with a tossed salad, followed by an entree of meat, potatoes, or rice, and a vegetable. Mom served real food, not too much, and lots of plants.

The whole idea of Anti-aging is delusional — we are all going to die. Fighting aging is like trying to stop the mighty Mississippi with a shovel and a plastic bucket. Want to make God laugh? Show him your anti-aging plan.

I have accepted aging and the fact that I’m going to die. Growing old is not a battle or a war to be won. Aging is a natural continuation of my life all the way from birth to middle age to old age. It’s not a disease.

I’m going to age the way aging happens for me, and I’m going to accept it, good or bad. I’m not going to paint it over with anti-aging makeup or miracle supplements made from jellyfish.

“Aging gracefully means supporting your health in a way that helps you physically and mentally enjoy your life, and not necessarily trying to look younger,” says Healthline.

If that’s aging gracefully, sign me up.

But don’t tell a person with early-onset dementia or Parkinson’s disease to age gracefully. It’s insulting. They aren’t looking for things to keep them looking younger— they’re looking for something to keep them alive.

You don’t need to spend money on supplements, anti-aging creams, Botox, and facelifts to age gracefully. Aging gracefully means becoming a healthy, content older person who is comfortable in their wrinkled skin.

Aging gracefully means supporting your health in a way that helps you physically and mentally enjoy your life, and not necessarily trying to look younger.

If you want to get a lift to make you look younger, I think you should go for it. But if we want to feel younger, we should exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet, lower our stress, stop smoking, moderate our alcohol consumption or quit, and get enough sleep. These age-old graceful aging tips are free of charge and have been proven to help us feel younger. They even make us look younger.

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Stop Fighting

Let’s stop it with the military and boxing metaphors and just accept old age the way we accept the sun setting in the West.

I quit drinking five weeks ago, and I feel a lot better, but I feel tired. Just because you discard a bad habit doesn’t mean everything will get better quickly. Getting healthier takes time.

Maybe I’m, for the first time, feeling my older body. Drinking wine in the evening is fun and gives you energy — but it’s a kind of false energy. I now notice I’m tired in the evenings, since I don’t have my pick-me-up to make me feel better. Without the alcohol, I’m learning what it feels like to be 81. I’ll feel more energetic in a month or so as my body adjusts to the change.

But already, the puffiness in my face is gone, and the wedding ring I stopped wearing a few years ago because it was too tight now fits without my having to struggle to get it off. These are just some small signs of getting healthier.

I’ve lost 11 pounds in five weeks and am already wearing a few shirts I couldn’t fit into before I stopped drinking. Another small sign that my health is improving.

I’m starting to meditate daily again. I’m reading and watching YouTube videos now in the evening. I’m loading up on philosophy and spirituality, and, of course, politics. I’m loading up on experiences you won’t find scrolling social media. More small signs.

I’m savoring the taste of apple juice and mint, the full moon, my wife’s smile, and the wonderful books I’m devouring: The Empire of AI, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, The Odyssey, First Person Singular: Stories by Haruki Murakami, and Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life. I highly recommend all these books. I’ve finished three of the five and am enjoying reading instead of drinking wine.

Life is a banquet, or a moveable feast as Hemingway called it. And in this late-life time of slowing down, I’m beginning to appreciate life like I never did before. There is a partial eclipse of the moon this evening, and I hope the clouds allow me to see it.

But even if the clouds don’t cooperate, I know the moon will still be there behind them. I know the sun is always shining even on rainy days.

Are you aging gracefully? Or are you fighting aging? What influenced your decision to fight or accept aging? I’d love to hear your perspective.

Gary
August 2026

There is so much change in our lives in old age. It helps to say the things that scare us about it. That’s one reason I write these essays. The other is that I want to be held accountable, to know someone is watching.

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I Want To Be Boring

I’m becoming the person I never expected to be: boring and a lover of the simple things.

Suddenly, this boomer wants soft music, simple food, and a quiet walk in nature. He wants to be the boring guy in the room. The one who doesn’t want to be the center of attention, the funniest one, or the smartest.

Becoming boring was not a conscious decision for me. It happened as a consequence of recently being diagnosed with a disorder in which my body began doing things without my permission. It was cheating on me in the middle of the night.

I learned I had REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD), which caused me to act out my scary dreams — I jumped out of bed in my sleep a few times. Plus, it’s a disorder that may lead to Parkinson’s disease; I emphasize the may. That scares me.

What are possible causes of RBD?

• Being male and over 50

• Neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease

• Stroke

• Multiple system atrophy

• Dementia with Lewy bodies

• Or heavy alcohol use!

As Mike Tyson said, you think you’ve got a great plan until someone punches you in the face.

A study has shown that alcohol consumption was associated with a higher likelihood of having probable REM Sleep Behavior Disorder. My sleep doctor confirmed that with me.

Heavy alcohol intake? Holy crap, I thought. This diagnosis led to a cascading series of decisions that have touched every area of my life. In other words, it brought me face to face with my mortality. Thank God it was not an immediaently life threatening disease like cancer. I had some time; I had some options, I thought.

Up to now, I had always thought I was on the right track. I was doing all the right things to thrive in old age. All I had to do was stick to my plan to keep writing, meditating, treating people with kindness, and staying positive about aging. But it’s not always so logical. As Mike Tyson said, you think you’ve got a great plan until someone punches you in the face.

The Cascade

So I decided to quit drinking for a year to manage the RBD, and one thing led to another and another and another. I learned that if you’re making one big life change, you might be surprised what happens next. You suddenly get schooled on the spiritual wisdom that everything is interconnected.

Quitting drinking would also be good for my overweight condition, which I have been ignoring for years. I realized that if I stop drinking, I will for sure lose the 40–50 pounds I need to lose.

I took immediate action to address my RBD and my scary dreams. I reasoned that if I don’t have scary dreams, I won’t end up launching myself out of bed.

I have stopped watching violent TV shows, and I listen to relaxing music as I fall asleep at night. I’m taking Flomax to hopefully reduce the number of times I need to get up and pee at night. And I continue taking 15 MG of slow-release melatonin for my RBD. According to my sleep doctor, melatonin is the supplement of choice to control RBD.

Yesterday, she told me if I stay off alcohol, keep using the nightly music and melatonin, and keep losing weight, my RBD symptoms would probably subside and possibly disappear. I left her office feeling lighter.

But that wasn’t all.

If I lose the weight, the arthritis in my knees may go away since I won’t be carrying around the equivalent of a 40-pound suitcase all day. And my A1C number may drop into the normal range, and I can stop worrying about type 2 diabetes.

Stopping the wine will get my swollen ankles back to normal. The edema is already lessening, and I’m glad. I am on the road to feeling better, looking better, and making better decisions.

I spent the first half of my life chasing excitement and pushing my luck. I now reflect on what a comfort wine has been for me over the years. But the wine came with a heavy tariff —all the health problems it has brought me.

This will be a year of beneficial change. A lot can change in 12 months — the body and the mind are resilient. The body can heal, and the brain can forge new neural pathways even in old age.

I’m hopeful, but watchful and mindful of my situation — stay tuned.

Things left out

I have not covered one other thing that is tremendously important: exercise. Moving your body in whatever way you enjoy or are able to do. I haven’t said anything about exercise because I’m not doing it to any extent. I have been so preoccupied with all the things above, I haven’t had the time or the energy to address it, but I will in future essays.

Thank you for reading.

There is so much change in our lives in old age. It helps to say the things that scare us about it. That’s one reason I write these essays. The other is that I want to be held accountable, to know someone is watching.

What are the biggest changes you’re dealing with in old age? Let me know.

Take care.

Gary
August 2026

He lies in bed at ten p.m. “I’m sick of having nightmares and falling out of bed. My life for the past two years has been a nightmare. I’m not going to have them anymore — I’m going to change my life.” He turns off the light and presses Play on Max Richter’s 8-hour album: Sleep, and begins to drift away.

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Sleep

I vastly underestimated two things: my withdrawal from alcohol and sleep.

When I quit drinking, I thought within a week I would be posting essays like Heather Cox Richardson, walking two miles every day, sleeping like Rip Van Winkle, and feeling ready to rock and roll at the drop of a hat.

Instead, I feel like I dropped my hat and can’t bend over to pick it up.

Lack of energy aside, I’m doing okay after 23 days of riding the sober coaster. I’ve lost 9 pounds, swollen ankles are shrinking, arthritis pain is lessening, I haven’t fallen out of bed again, and I FINALLY feel like writing.

But sleep.

I’ve got some problems with sleep. It’s hard to be robust and healthy if you’re not getting enough sleep. I’m devoting this essay to sleep because it’s my main issue now. And maybe it’s a metaphor. I’ve been asleep for quite a few years, and it’s time for me to wake up.

For the first time in my life, my sleep life has slipped out of my control. This is not because I’ve stopped drinking; it began before I stopped — in fact, maybe alcohol is the cause of it.

REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD)

As some of you might know, this disorder is when your body stops blocking your muscle movements when you’re having dreams of, say, running like hell to evade someone. I wrote in more detail about it here.

If nature is doing its job, it’s like watching a movie. You don’t sit in a movie theater and punch and flail your arms, and yell at the on-screen villain — but you do if a villain attacks you in a dream and you have RBD.

I not only punched and flailed my arms, but on two occasions I engaged my legs and launched myself right out of bed. Obviously, this can be dangerous to me and my bedmate. But I have taken action to reduce or eliminate RBD.

First, I have cleared the landing area: removed my nightstand and put a soft foam mat on the floor. So that will make falling out of bed safer, but that is not ultimately what I want to do. I want to eliminate RBD altogether.

Secondly, I had an overnight sleep study done a month ago and don’t yet have the results. One type of REM Sleep Behavior Disorder may lead to Parkinson’s disease. But I may or may not have that one, and if I do, I won’t know about it until I’m diagnosed.

And if my doctor says I have it, what could I do about it anyway? There’s no cure. For now, I’m just assuming I don’t have it. I don’t want to put some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in motion.

Third, I take three 5 mg tablets of time-release melatonin at bedtime. The time-release tablets work better for my RBT.

I’m also monitoring my sleep with the Apple Watch sleep app, so I have a rolling record of my progress toward better sleep. But listening to healing sleep music seems to be making the biggest difference for me.

The music that’s kept my REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD) at bay

Since my out-of-bed experiences start with disturbing dreams, I have taken steps to not have them. I’m moderating my media to eliminate violent TV shows. Plus, I am listening to relaxing sleep music in bed while I fall asleep, which I figure will eliminate bad dreams and nightmares, and so far it has.

For a month, I’ve been listening, at bedtime, to the 8-hour composition called Sleep by Max Richter, a renowned German-born British composer and pianist who blends classical traditions with modern electronic music. (Sleep by Max Richter, Deutsche Grammophon, 2015, streaming audio/CD.)

I use Apple Music to stream it from my iPhone to my left AirPod as I lie on my right side to sleep. (It doesn’t feel good to have both earbuds in when I’m sleeping on my side, and I never sleep on my back.)

Sleep is not just new age musicians noodling on synthesizers. It is an 8-hour composition by a serious composer, Max Richter, for seven musicians: Max Richter on piano, organ, synthesizers, and electronics. And six others on vocals, violin, viola, and cello.

Richter and his group have even performed the 8-hour composition live, overnight, with hundreds of people sleeping on cots, 25 times: in London, Los Angeles, and other locations worldwide.

Each performance is essentially an entire working night: Richter and his musicians play for roughly eight and a half hours, with the audience sleeping or not. The music convinces most of them to sleep.

Every night in bed, I listen to Sleep until I fall asleep. The first time I wake up to pee, I turn the music off before going to sleep again. So I only hear 10–20 minutes of Sleep before I nod off. And it’s a beautiful composition I never tire of hearing — I’m considering letting the music go for an hour or two.

Max Richter says others with sleep disorders feel the same way.

I am really happy at the comments we’ve been getting from folks with sleeping disorders, et cetera. The piece was always an artistic experiment, not medicine, but it turns out it may be that too.
 — Max Richter, Tidal.com

I swear by this composition for getting better sleep. And I highly recommend it. Here’s a YouTube link where you can sample it, but YouTube might not be the best place to use it for sleep because YouTube will play a commercial after 10 minutes or so, and that would wake you up with a start! You can listen ad-free with YouTube Premium. I subscribe to Apple Music and listen to Sleep that way.

I am not using Sleep to help me fall asleep. I’m listening to begin the night in a relaxed, wholesome mood that invites sweet dreams and fends off nightmares. I figure if I don’t have disturbing, violent dreams, I won’t exhibit the more dangerous body movements that end up with me on the floor, or that could be harmful to Marina.

The Straight of Hormuz

Another sleep problem I have is needing to get up and pee 4–5 times a night. My Apple Watch says I’m averaging six hours of sleep, out of 8 hours in bed.

This eliminates any semblance of a restorative night’s sleep. This symptom is called nocturia. In older men, the cause is benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) — an enlarged prostate. I’ll let the Mayo Clinic explain the rest.

The prostate gland is located beneath the bladder. The tube that moves urine from the bladder out of the penis is called the urethra. This tube passes through the center of the prostate. When the prostate gets bigger, it starts to block urine flow.

The prostate is a gland that typically keeps growing throughout life. This growth often enlarges the prostate enough to cause symptoms or to block urine flow.

You can see where this is going, right?

So in layperson’s terms: The urethra is trying to send my pee (let’s call it ships) through a shrinking Straight of Hormuz. So I need to open the Straight of Hormuz so the pee (ships) can flow freely. If I don’t open the Straight, the bladder will not empty fully when I pee. Hence the need to get up multiple times to finish the job.

Whew! That metaphor wore me out.

To hopefully fix this, my doctor prescribed Flomax. (Don’t you just love those drug names?) If I could get my wake-ups down to one or two times a night, I think my sleep quality and duration would improve. I’ll be going with the flow, so to speak.

It’s too early to say whether the Flowmax will do the trick, but I hope so. You never realize how important a good night’s sleep is until you can’t get one.

Night Listening

It’s odd that listening to music at night in bed is so important to me. Maybe it takes me back to 1957 when I was 13. I used to put my transistor radio under my pillow so I could listen to a rhythm and blues DJ, Hunter Hancock, spin platters without my parents catching on that I wasn’t sleeping.

I don’t dream of returning to 1957 — I like where I am now. But I wish I could always be as happy as I was then.

A man can dream.

Are you getting enough sleep? Please post a response; I’d really like to know your experience and any new ideas you have to offer.

Gary
August 2026

I am an optimist, as my long-time readers know.

Lately I have been writing about a handful of ailments I’m dealing with, seemingly all of a sudden. One commenter to my last article accused me of throwing a “pity party.” He’s entitled to his opinion, but I don’t view telling the facts of what’s going on in my life as complaining. It’s just reporting. And I hope my writing, about ailments that you may also be confronting now or in the future, is useful.

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All through my 70s, I thought I was aging slowly — suddenly, at 81, I felt I had aged 10 years. It seemed like I was sneak-attacked by a swarm of ailments from out of nowhere.

Of course, after I thought about it, I realized that most or all of my ailments have been developing slowly over years and are lifestyle issues. We age the way we fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.

So I have decided to quit drinking for one year and see if things will improve.

It’s been hard for me to write about quitting drinking. I haven’t finished an essay since I quit on June 21st, 16 days ago. I figured I would write more when I stopped drinking wine every evening. But I didn’t. Stopping drinking has made me tired, cranky, and brain foggy, and I didn’t feel like writing.

I’ve been drinking 3–4 glasses of wine per evening, and when you’re drinking that much, stopping can be uncomfortable, but my withdrawal symptoms have been relatively mild, as I expected.

Here’s the real reason my writing has stalled.

Over the last five years, the cornerstone of my life as a senior has become authenticity — in my personal life and in my writing. So if I am faithful to that, I should write openly and honestly about my drinking and why I quit — so here goes.

I guess I am ashamed it has taken me all these years to do something I knew I needed to do years ago. And it has taken me a while to get up the courage to write about it. Once I write about it on Substack and Medium, I will have drawn up a contract of sorts, and it will be embarrassing if I don’t hold to it.

Here’s another reason why it took so long for me to quit and to write about it. I truly enjoy drinking wine, and I don’t want to let go of it. I enjoy being out with friends and getting loose-lipped and a bit out of control. I love saying ridiculous things — making people laugh.

I don’t feel guilty about my drinking. And I will not become an anti-alcohol crusader just because I have stopped. You be you. Drink or not — it doesn’t matter to me. Have fun, I say. Anyway, after one year I may go back to drinking (moderately) again. We’ll see.

Here’s why I believe I may be able to moderate after a year off the sauce.

I believe people drink to relax after a hard day, to numb themselves so they won’t have to think about their problems for a few hours, or to fill a hole inside that they may not even be able to acknowledge.

The last three years have been difficult for me with tons of psychological stress over my daughter and all the ramifications around that situation. I haven’t been just drinking — I’ve been self-medicating.

But in the last three years I have acquired a skill that has leveled up my life in many ways: writing. For the first time in my life, I have a unique talent that inspires me, fulfills me, helps others, and boosts my self-esteem. I may have filled that hole.

There’s no doubt I’ve been drinking too much for a man my age. And if I stop, I think most of my ailments will improve. My relationships will improve. I will lose weight. My skin will clear, and the bloating in my face will disappear. I’ll write more and better. And most of the other health issues I have will improve.

Sure, I’ll miss my evening buzz and the fun of sharing wine with Marina and our friends. But as I’ve written about many times, there will be many things we need to give up in old age. Drinking is one of mine.

I have been drinking daily since I was 20. So it’s a lifelong habit with a groove so deep it’s hard to steer out of it. I was never an alcoholic in the way most people understand the word. I drank daily, but unlike an alcoholic, I could always stop. I would classify myself as someone who has engaged in unhealthy alcohol use.

Here’s one of the hardest things about quitting.

When you announce you have quit drinking, the first thing some people think is: “He’s an alcoholic, he should go to AA, it’s very sad he couldn’t control himself.”

It’s been said that the only thing harder than quitting is the pushback from friends and family who drink. This is a potential problem area between my wife and me.

• I’m disrupting our normal routine. We’re used to sharing wine in the evenings. My not drinking changes our social script.

• Marina may feel judged, even though I’m not judging her. She is a moderate drinker compared to me.

• Marina will miss her drinking companion. She might think, It was more fun when we were both drinking. That being said, she is 100 percent behind my effort to quit for a year. But I think she will miss our evenings with wine together.

• These same kind of tensions may arise with other family members and friends who drink.

“You’re quitting? they might say. Why dont you just cut back, moderate, only drink on weekends, or on special occasions, on vacation, or do Dry January?”

The moderation suggestions are endless because other drinkers don’t want to be reminded of the downsides to drinking. They don’t want to consider whether they may also have a problem with alcohol.

But there is no reason to worry about what other people think about my decision. If I worry too much about other people, I may rationalize an excuse not to quit — so I won’t hurt their feelings, or some such bogus excuse. I am making this decision because I believe it will improve my life.

I’m sure you are asking: why only one year? Why not just quit forever? That’s an excellent question. I believe that if I stay abstinate for a year and accrue all the benefits it will bring. I might be able to moderate. I know AA members may scoff, thinking I’m in denial — and they may be right. Or I may decide to continue sans wine after a year.

But this is my decision. It’s my body, my life, and my future, so I will take responsibility for it all, whatever I decide.

And what about seniors and drinking?

There are many articles and essays about how to stay healthy in old age, and drinking alcohol is rarely mentioned unless it’s a piece specifically about the downsides of alcohol. Because articles about the dangers of drinking in old age don’t get clicks.

What gets clicks is the story about the 102-year-old sheep herder, Giuseppe Mura, in Sardinia, now deceased. All his life he would put in 16-hour days, tilling the earth or following his sheep into pasture. He drank roughly a liter of local Sardinian wine every day. (That’s about 7 to 8 glasses of wine.) Drinkers read such articles and say, “ See — drinking wine is good for you — Cheers!

(Source: The Blue Zones: 9 lessons for living longer from the people who’ve lived the longest. Second edition 2008.)

The old guy in Sardinia is an exception. Do you walk all day in the rugged hills herding sheep and sleep outdoors beside them? Have you been walking those hills your whole life because you don’t own a car? Do you live simply without even a TV or a microwave? Are you living in a Blue Zone? Probably not.

I know alcohol is a touchy subject among seniors. It’s like driving. We have to make our own decisions about when to stop driving and how to handle drinking — when to moderate, quit, or continue as we are. Everyone ages differently and has their own age when stuff begins to happen “All at once.”

What are your thoughts about alcohol? Do you drink? Do you moderate? Are you a non-drinker? I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I will read and answer every response. I learn a lot from your experience.

Tomorrow I will post the second half of this essay: 12 Things My Stopping Drinking Will Improve. In it, I will assess all my current health matters and why I think they will improve without alcohol.

Gary
August 2026

I’m learning that the best times of your life aren’t always the easiest.

When I was 78, I wrote an essay about old age being the best time of my life. And I really meant it. In it, I said, Once you accept your age, everything gets better — now I know that’s not necessarily true. Things might get worse. All the problems we have now might be with us for the rest of our lives.

Zen master Suzuki Roshi said, “Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.” That quote rings even truer at 81. Entropy is a bitch — we’re constantly spinning plates to keep up with the relentless onslaught of old age.

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Now that I’m 81, I’m starting to feel my age much more. I was pretty naive when I wrote that “best time of my life” stuff. I was a baby elder, excited about entering a life era that only existed in my head. I was a teenager dreaming of California stars.

I was looking forward to living to 100 — I was making a marathon into a walk in the park. Old age is not easy, or old age is not for sissies, as someone said.

I’m now dealing with REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, hearing loss, arthritis in both knees, balance problems, bladder deficiencies, slowly worsening cataracts and, of course, memory lapses. (I’m probably forgetting some things.)

No one told me that old age is a full-time job and there is no retirement except for the big one we’re all trying to avoid. I used to talk about living to 100 as if it might be a fun thing. Like, I might be profiled in the newspaper on how I’m still writing essays and having a glass of wine every night at 100.

Look how adorable he is.

There is nothing adorable about old age, even if I have the money to live a fairly comfortable life. I’m running out of energy, and I’m running out of time. That being said, I wouldn’t want to go back in time and be 13 again, no matter how tempting that sounds.

That’s not how life works. Everything runs down like a clock with a failing battery, like an old machine in a crumbling factory. Ashes are never going to be firewood again. Everything that was born is going to die, and yet I want to stay for the whole movie — and see what happens.

I know most of my problems have been slowly building over the years, but it seems like they all ambushed me when I turned 81. I burst onto the old-age writing scene three years ago, so optimistic about accepting and exploring old age, and now it seems like I’m hunkered down in the trenches, fending off attackers like Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory.

I’m still optimistic, but I feel tired and beset with putting out fires all day, and there seems to be no end to them. The concept of retirement seems absurd now. It seems I spend all my time managing my various maladies and planning my next procedure. Arthritis in my knees, for instance. I may have a knee replacement in my future.

I have an overnight sleep test this evening, and will rush home tomorrow morning to get to a meeting with Marina with the executor of our estate, and there will be talk of death, wills, and advance directives. And to top it all off, I’ll spend the rest of my time thinking almost exclusively about old age — the good, the bad, and the ugly — so I can write about it.

Plus, I have a lot of fear around falling on a sidewalk or down the stairs. I am very careful when I walk these days. But still I keep walking because that’s my job as a human.

I did my job as an infant, a teenager, and an adult, and now I’ve got to finish it — run all the way to the end of the marathon, but unlike a real marathon, I don’t know where the finish line is.

I fear my movie may have a surprise ending.

I think all this has a lot to do with life energy and running low on it. Yesterday I drove over to the Inner Sunset district to buy a gift for my son, and walking, maybe a half mile, to find the store, tired me out. I guess I have reached the point of being fully conscious of my flagging energy — like an aging boxer.

Best time of my life? Did I really say that?

I did, and I still think it’s true. I’m writing on Substack and Medium and have gathered a faithful following of readers on both platforms, and that gives me a lot of pleasure and a reason to get up in the morning. And I know the things I need to do to recover some of my lost energy.

I just need to keep walking — mindful of every step and grateful for every moment.

What has surprised you most about growing older? I’d love to hear your story.

Gary
July 2026

Did you ever notice that cartoon speech bubbles are drawn as a solid oval or rectangle with a single pointed tail directed toward the speaker? And thought bubbles are shaped like clouds with small circles aimed at the thinker?

A meditation teacher might say, “You are not your thoughts.” They usually do not mean that you have no thoughts or that thoughts are bad. They mean that your thoughts are experiences you have, not your essential identity. Clouds have no interesting content to think about unless you’re a meteorologist. So clouds are a useful metaphor for thoughts in meditation.

I know I don’t have to believe my thoughts — that I don’t even know where my thoughts come from — and that I don’t have any control over my thoughts. I learned this through years of meditation.

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But it was only a few days ago that I learned what I’m really writing about. I thought I was writing about old age, but I’m not. I learned this when I began to look back at my writing on Medium and Substack over the past six years, with the help of a friend who could take an objective view of my writing and tell me the truth.

Here’s what I learned.

• I am not really writing about aging.

• Aging is the setting.

• I’m writing about how our reality differs from our ideas about reality.

• I’m writing about the tension between what society says aging means and what it actually feels like.

I’m writing about what old age feels like for me. There is nothing more important than knowing what aging feels like. How aging feels in the moment is the secret we’ve been looking for. It’s the fountain of youth.

It’s the main event.

If we know how we are feeling in the moment, we’ll have gate-crashed reality. We’ll have found the Holy Grail of aging. But wait, you might say, I already know how I feel about aging. I’m me. I’m living in my body.

You might say, I read an article in The Guardian about how old age really sucks and is just the portal to more pain and suffering. Or maybe you read an article by me about how old age can be the best time of your life.

Both articles are wrong.

The only truth about old age is your truth. The truth about your sore legs, knees, and hips. The truth about your fear. The truth about all the things you have to give up in old age. The pain, loneliness, simple joys, and friendships. Your spouse’s smile. The sunrise.

Reality — not your thoughts about it.

I am only talking about the forest here, not the thousands of individual trees we have to deal with in our lives. In my writing, I take a 35,000-foot view of old age.

For me, this is the most important thing to know about life. General semanticist Alfred Korzybski coined the term: “The map is not the territory.” I remember hearing this quote in a high school class, and it has stuck with me because of the simple way it captures the mistake that makes everything harder.

It is a purely mental mistake.

And when I studied Zen, it really sank in. That simple quote describes the mistake that almost everyone makes over and over in their lives. The map is not the territory. The menu is not the meal. My thoughts about myself are not me.

This is the fundamental thing I have learned in Zen: “My thoughts are not me.” And I write about this within the setting of old age.

So it’s nice to know my thoughts are not me, but how do I explore this simple truth? The answer is to have a good look at my thoughts. Just spend some time watching them without attaching to them. To sit quietly and observe my thoughts (there will be a ton of them). If I don’t engage them, they will go away, one by one.

Many psychologists and neuroscientists suggest that a single conscious thought typically occupies the mind for around 5 to 10 seconds before attention naturally shifts if you don’t engage. If you engage, it could stay with you for hours — or years.

It is possible to live our entire lives through our thoughts instead of what’s actually going on. Maybe that’s what mentally ill people do, but sane people do it too.

Old age is a wonderful time to make this discovery of a lifetime — I am not my thoughts. But we can’t just sit down one day and decide, I am not my thoughts. It takes time. Simply knowing it is the first step. Then, reading Buddhist sutras, Zen parables, and philosophy will give you some good examples of the idea.

Spending quiet time in nature is illuminating when you do it with “I am not my thoughts” in mind. If you are older, you probably have time to sit quietly, doing nothing.

Over weeks, months, and years, I have gradually learned to take my thoughts a lot less seriously. With meditation, this life lesson slowly sinks in.

Of course, there are many other things to learn about old age: illnesses, exercise, diet, and health strategies for longevity. I seldom write about these things—one, because I am not an expert in those areas— and two, I only write about what I know: mindfulness, meditation, and, of course, being old.

So if you are older and depressed or have an illness, please see a professional about it. I am not a doctor. And there is endless information online about diet and exercise for us seniors.

My writings are always steeped in Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and philosophy — but always remember those are all just thoughts, too. A Zen story is not reality. A Zen teacher would call it a finger pointing at the moon, and would warn you not to get fascinated by the finger and miss the moon.

Gary
July 1 2026.

When I was young, I didn’t see chairs.

They were just part of the wallpaper of life, like tables, lawns, and bowling alleys. They were a place to rest before I jumped up and rolled another strike. I hardly needed a chair because I was hardly ever tired.

Chairs were the things I was forced to stay in for an hour in algebra class. Chairs were torture devices I was chained to to keep me in line. Chairs were the vehicles on the assembly line of the American educational system.

But now, chairs are the seats in God’s waiting room. Chairs are heavenly. I don’t care if they are priceless Louis XIV chairs or white plastic taquaria chairs. Chairs are God’s gift to humanity when you’re 81. A chair is cool water in the desert.

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When I go shopping with Marina, and she goes into a women’s clothing store, I can never find a chair. While she shops for shoes and blouses, I am trolling for chairs (in the fishing sense). There are maybe one or two benches or chairs in the store, and bored husbands like me always occupy them. I envy them and trudge on.

Marina and I are in Copenhagen, and as with most vacations, we are walking a lot. Even with the great Metro and superb train system, you still need to walk a lot here if you don’t have a car and don’t use Taxis or Uber. Yesterday I got 13,000 steps, but I’m not in very good shape, so I was exhausted.

This vacation is like a wellness boot camp for me.

Yesterday we visited the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, about 20 minutes north of Copenhagen, on the coast overlooking the Øresund Strait. It’s in a park setting with sculptures outside, and the paintings and other art inside. It’s beautiful just to walk around in before you even see the art.

One of the most precious features was the many chairs and benches placed about in the park, surrounding and intertwined with the modern glass-infused buildings. There were plenty of places for older people to rest inside and outside.

Why are chairs so important to me?

Chairs are a physical manifestation of my acceptance of old age. I now stop and rest when I’m tired, with no worry that someone will think, Look at that old man. He must be tired (and he is).

One of the top three things I would recommend to older people is to RELAX. Don’t take things too seriously, because life is too much fun to get serious about it. So whenever I see a chair, I take the opportunity to sit down.

In Copenhagen, they seem to honor their elders. Yesterday I saw an older couple walking with their granddaughter in a public square. The granddaughter was kneeling down and tying her grandfather’s shoes. That touched me.

I fear for the day when Marina may have to do that for me. I’m not sure I could gladly accept it. I might feel embarrassed. Not being able to tie my shoes or put on my socks are major signs of late old age, and I resist going there. But I know I’m going there eventually.

This vacation has unintentionally provided an exercise program for me. Like a personal trainer, but the personal trainer is me. I have gone from my doctor advising me to walk every day — and not doing it — to walking five or more miles a day, and averaging 7,000 steps. I will build a two-and-a-half-week foundation of walking to follow up on when I get home.

Chairs loom large to remind me to relax and not get in a hurry. I’ve learned that when you’re walking, and you want to look up at a building, stop first and then look up. Keep your eye on the sidewalk every minute when walking so you don’t trip and fall.

The most important thing I do now is to walk my own walk. I don’t try to keep up with faster people — my gait is just slower. To keep up with younger people would be exhausting. So I walk at my own pace and invite others to walk with me. When you walk slower and stop more often to rest, you see things you otherwise would have missed.

Like the present moment.

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh taught walking meditation more often than sitting meditation. “Just walk slowly,” he’d say, “and be mindful of each step and each breath.” It’s actually an advanced meditation technique, and anyone can do it.

And if you’re on vacation in a busy city, it’s necessary for your own safety to walk this way. Walk slowly, mindful of each step you take. Walk this way everywhere you go. It’s actually meditation, but don’t tell anyone you’re meditating. Just tell them you’re walking this way to make sure you don’t fall.

Tell them it’s backed by science.

Gary
June 2025

I’m posting this from Copenhagen, where we arrived by train from Hamburg yesterday.

Marina and I spent four days in Hamburg, Germany, at her nephew’s wedding. We’ll be here in Copenhagen for five days, then on to Mannheim, Frankfurt, and Heilbronn to see more of her family and friends.

The trip is stress-testing my legs, but they’re carrying me well, despite some sore muscles. It’s kind of hot for compression socks, but I’m still wearing them every day. And before I left, my doctor told me my A1C is now back to normal. On the Metro this evening on the way to dinner, a young woman offered me her seat on the train, and I accepted it without getting pissed off.

Major progress for me.

Traveling at 81 is a trip I’ve never made. But I figure I’m lucky I’m able to do it—I’m lucky I’m still here.

I hope you enjoy this reposting.

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You’re Never Too Old To Be Bold

The cruelest thing that anyone can tell you is that you are over the hill, or that you’re not good enough. But there is always someone willing to tell you you can’t do something.

Once upon a time, I was an enlisted man in the Air Force during the Vietnam era (1967). I told a young lieutenant that I wanted to go to college when I got out. And he told me I didn’t have what it takes to make it in college.

He said I should go to a trade school instead. Can you imagine the ignorance and arrogance it took for a wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant to tell a 21-year-old he’s not smart enough for college?

Why didn’t he have the humanity to say, “Go for it, Sergeant.” Why did he have to come down on the negative side? Some people always come down on the “You can’t do it” side.

When I was discharged, I went to a Community College in Oakland, California, during the flower-power era, and transferred to San Francisco State University and graduated. I will never forget that guy telling me I wasn’t good enough for college.

That’s why I’ll never tell someone they can’t do something. No one knows what you can do because they are not you. No one — absolutely no one — has ever incarnated exactly the same as you. You are unique, yet still interconnected with everyone and everything.

We are all made of stars, yet we are all unique.

My work as a writer on aging is not to be a hard-nosed objectivist doling out tough love about diet, exercise, and illness to people who are struggling. There are plenty of people who can help with those things. That’s not my mission.

My mission is to encourage, uplift, and inspire you to thrive amid the mental and psychological challenges of old age. Every day, I’m working up the courage to do that myself. I’m writing about old age here on Substack — not only to help you — but to help myself.

I am not objective about it. I’m biased toward us — adults of a certain age. And I will never tell you you are wrong. How can I? I don’t know you. I’m just a guy writing on the internet. I have never met you, don’t know your history, or how you think.

But I know for sure that you’re older, and you might be scared of what’s coming next. I know I am. Whenever someone dies, you check the obituary for their age, cause of death, and do the numbers. You don’t dwell in the future as much as when you were young. You’re in the thick of the here and now — now!

At least I imagine that’s what you do, because I do it. I believe we are more alike than different, more positive than negative, more kind than cruel, and more forgiving. After a relatively short time as a writer (four years), the responses from my readers tell me that my beliefs about you are accurate. Older adults crave empathy, optimism, kindness, and happiness like anyone else.

Happiness In Old Age

New studies show that older people are happier than middle-aged people. One reason is that we have less future left to look forward to. We’re not worried and fearful about it — we’re dealing with it.

I know all this because I’m 80 and I am going through the same kinds of things you are. I worry about whether my social security deposit will appear on the third of every month. Whether I’ll have enough money in late retirement.

I worry because he’s back for a second POTUS term, but I’ve made a decision. I’m not going to let him live rent-free in my head this time. I’ve got myself, my family, and my elder brothers and sisters to think about.

The only way to thrive in old age is to be bold. Do something new, be a super-ager, keep ticking items off your bucket list, throw a party, vote, go out on the streets and demonstrate if you can — and don’t forget to smile and have fun every day. Be kind to yourself and love your neighbor. And if you really want to be the boldest of the bold, love your enemies too.

Love is the answer.

Gary
(Written in August 2025)

Some people hold their private thoughts close to their chest; others are spillers.

I’m a spiller.

There’s a trail of beans wherever I go. I used to be critical of spillers, but now I know it’s better to spill it out than to hold it in.

Holding our stuff inside can be harmful to our psyches. Yes, spillers are annoying sometimes, but a certain amount of spilling is necessary if you want to be authentic.

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I have decided to be an open book in my remaining years. Old age is difficult, probably the most difficult time most people ever face. I want to reveal what old age is like from one senior’s unique view. I have decided that if something is interesting to me at 81, it will be interesting to many other seniors.

This has proven true so far. The comment section of my essays tells the tale. People are resonating with what I write.

In my last essay, I wrote about discovering that I probably have REM Sleep Behavior Disorder. Normally, our bodies are blocked from physically acting out our dreams. In REM disorder, something is haywire, and we act them out. Dreams can be a wild, funhouse of strange happenings, like a movie chase scene, for instance.

With REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, if I am being chased in a dream, I might lunge to escape someone and actually leap out of bed onto the floor. This has happened to me two times in less than six months. It has never happened before.

As a writer, I felt I had to bring this out, not be embarrassed by it as if it makes me a less-than-perfect person. This sleep disorder is one of my truths, and I have a choice to hide it or bring it forth. And when I brought it forth, my readers opened up and told me about their experiences with the disorder.

One man woke up from a dream in which he was choking an assailant, to find he was choking his little pet dog. Many described yelling and flailing their arms, scaring their spouses. Opening up about my experience permitted them to do it too. And reading their comments was helpful to me. It’s comforting to know I’m not alone.

Seniors are hungry for insight into aging. They know whether I’m real or whether I’m using AI. They know when something feels off, like slightly rancid olive oil.

I read a lot of writing these days that seems off, nearly perfect writing, but slightly removed from reality. It’s the menu and not the actual meal. Only humans can experience the meal. The missing ingredient in AI is a beating heart and a lively consciousness.

Let’s say Marina and I are sitting at the beach, watching an amazing sunset. AI can write beautifully about that — but it can never experience the sunset. It can only describe it by drawing on what humans have said about sunsets in the past.

In Zen, there is an often-used metaphor about words: “A finger pointing at the moon.” The moon is reality. Words are fingers pointing at reality. We can become so fascinated by the fingers (words) that we don’t see the reality. We are made of lived experiences — AI is made of fingers.

People can get bored with a relentless spiller, so I have to be careful to make sure my writing is relatable to people, not just a diary entry. There is an old phrase called “Spilling the Tea.” It is usually defined as sharing gossip, juicy news, or revealing a secret. That’s not the kind of spilling I want to do, the kind you find on social media or TMZ.

My definition of Spilling the Tea is Spilling the T.

And the T stands for truth. If I want people to read my personal essays, they have to be true. Readers can smell a phony coming 20 miles down the pike. When they read AI writing, they know something is off. Something’s rotten in Denmark.

There is a quote from Jesus that has become popular among writers and artists, regarding creativity. It carries a deep meaning for me. The following is from translator Marven Meyer from his book, The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings Of Jesus.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Whether or not you are a Christian, this is powerful. What it means to me is that if I want to be a truly creative writer, I need to be transparent. I need to spill the beans. If I am not transparent, I won’t be able to reveal the many truths about being old. I won’t be able to really connect with readers.

Truths about aging emerge from old souls.

If I am unwilling to reveal myself, no one will read me. This is why AI won’t work for writers. I don’t want to reveal 100 percent of myself. I honestly can’t. I leave aspects of myself out. But I try to make sure what I do reveal is the truth as I know it.

Old age is no joke — it’s deadly serious.

And old age is not a medical condition — it’s the natural, healthy continuation of youth and middle age. I don’t write about the science of aging. I don’t have the qualifications to do that, and that’s not what I want to write about anyway.

I write about the lived experience of old age, as you are, but I am not writing only about old age.

Aging is the setting in which I write.

Within it, I write about deeper themes such as:

• How we suffer less from aging than from our ideas about aging.

• The surprises of growing old.

• How can we find freedom inside unavoidable change?

• Keeping our sense of humor and curiosity in the face of decline.

• The tension between what society says aging means and what it actually feels like.

We, seniors, know what aging feels like. Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it’s painful. And sometimes we suffer. We need to be conscious of the entire spectrum of aging: the good and the bad. I bring that forth.

The more I bring you the truth from my experience, the more I learn from you as you feed back your experience to me. We are part of the aging community. The forgotten generation, from the undiscovered country of old age.

I think this is our time. For me, it’s like 1957, when I was 13, when Rock and Roll exploded, and I had my own music. Every day was filled with discoveries, and I was more mindful than I have ever been. I was truly happy. But I didn’t know it.

Now, nearly 70 years later, I feel like I’m 13 again. I have my own community of seniors, and I have taken my place as a writer among them, and I feel more mindful and happy than in 1957. That may sound preposterous, but it’s true for me.

This is our time. The elderly population grows every year.

We scare experts who call us the silver tsunami, as if we are a menace. But things are changing. The new Netflix series, The Burroughs, has been called “Stranger Things — But with Old People” by one reviewer. I’m watching it and loving it. It’s science fiction, but full of satire about the Senior Industrial Complex. It’s science fiction and a bit corny, but there is a message hidden in the show about how we are treated.

When major filmmakers start making films about us that depict us as confident, intelligent, wise people standing up for ourselves, we can know our time has come.

We old souls shouldn’t be afraid to share how it feels to be a senior. To our friends, our family, and everyone we meet. Because when we bring forth what is within us, it will save us. What we keep hidden will destroy us.

We need to shine our light.

Gary
June 2026

I thought I knew about all my challenges of old age, but here’s a new one I didn’t see coming.

Now I not only have to deal with my sore knees, swollen ankles (venous insufficiency), weight gain, loss of stamina, D.J.T., fear of falling, ageism, pre-diabetes, high gas prices, and impending death. That’s already a lot.

Last night, I threw myself out of bed.

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You heard that right. I involuntarily lunged to escape a dream villain and found myself on the floor. This is not good. It’s very dangerous. It seems my body got out of my control while I was sleeping. Our bodies have a built-in mechanism to keep our limbs from moving during REM sleep. But something went haywire last night.

This has never happened to me before 80, but this is the second time in a year I have lunged to escape a dream threat during sleep. Yet another senior condition to add to my growing list.

Luckily, it was a soft landing, and I didn’t hit my head on the wooden nightstand next to me. I didn’t mean to launch myself out of bed at three a.m. In my dream, something or someone, I don’t remember what, was chasing me, and I made a sharp right and crashed-landed on the floor.

Luckily, I took the entire duvet with me, so it was a softer landing than it could have been. My duvetless wife was all, “What the heck are you doing? Are you okay?”

Over the past year, I have had some minor episodes in which I punched and flailed my arms about and said things like stop it, get away from me and Marina would intervene and wake me up.

Turns out, being chased by dream characters and yelling, flailing around, punching, and even falling out of bed is a thing: It’s called REM Sleep Behavior Disorder. Here’s what Stanford University has to say about it.

Dreaming occurs during Rapid Eye Movement or REM sleep. With REM sleep, changes occur in brain signaling, which cause reduced muscle tone in many of the body’s muscles; this may be called REM sleep muscle paralysis [A good thing.] or muscle atonia. This is considered a normal function of REM sleep. REM behavior disorder occurs when the body maintains relatively increased muscle tone during REM sleep, [A bad thing] causing the sleeper to move and act out their dreams.
 — Stanford Healcare REM Behavior Disorder Guide

That’s my condition in a nutshell. For some reason, my body is not automatically shutting down my muscle tone during REM sleep, allowing it to enact my dreams during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep.

That’s why I was flailing and eventually launched myself out of bed while being chased by some bad guy in my dream. Normally, the brain inhibits muscle movement during REM sleep.

Have you ever flailed about in your sleep in response to your dreams? I’d love to know

That is not only dangerous to me, imagine my wife if I am punching and flailing about, my arms are dangerous weapons. She usually wakes up, grabs my arm, and says, Wake up, Gary! For her, it probably feels like sleeping with a loose cannon. So I need to learn how to tame this condition if it’s possible, for my sake and hers.

Studies have shown that REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) can be a precursor to Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia. Now my funny little story is getting serious. Parkinson’s disease is not amusing.

I’m very concerned.

So what am I going to do now?

I have done enough internet and AI research to scare the heck out of me, so I’m going to lighten up on the amateur sleuthing and let the experts have a go at it.

I have a doctor’s appointment four hours from now, which should give me some actionable information. I’ll report on the doctor’s appointment at the end of this essay.

I’ve also been doing some thinking about this that I haven’t seen in my internet searches: some psychological aspects I’m exploring.

I believe we have disturbing dreams due to chaos or unfinished business in our lives. So one thing I’m going to do is take better care of my personal and family issues, and maybe I won’t have so many disturbing dreams. If I’m having a dream about having tea with a friend, even if my arms move, it won’t be dangerous. (And I won’t spill tea on the bed.) That’s my theory anyway.

I’m back from seeing my Primary Physician, who seemed not to know much about REM Sleep Disorder, but she’s a family practitioner. That’s understandable; one can’t know everything. She made an appointment for me with a sleep specialist, and they will be calling me in a few days.

Meanwhile, I’m doing what I can, mainly making my sleep environment safer. I have removed the nightstand from beside my bed. I have placed some spare blankets on the floor to soften the landing in case I have another episode.

Could learning lucid dreaming help?

I used to read a lot about lucid dreaming: the phenomenon where you are asleep but fully aware that you are dreaming. If you can achieve lucidity, you can gain some control over the dream environment, the narration, and the various characters in the dream.

One trick to gain lucidity is to plant some prompts in your mind before you go to sleep. You might say, When I’m dreaming, I will look at my hands. That might make me fully conscious that I am in a dream, just like that. Experienced lucid dreamers say it works.

So now, before I go to sleep, I tell myself: If I have a disturbing dream, I will immediately say, Wake up now! Hopefully, before I launch myself out of bed. It’s worth a try.

So if we think we know all about old age, there’s always something new around the corner to burst our bubbles.

I’m super careful not to lose my balance and fall when I’m walking in the waking world. Now I’ve got to be mindful to avoid falling in my sleep, too. Not sure exactly how to do that, but I’m working on it.

Have you ever flailed about in your sleep in response to your dreams? I’d love to know.

Gary
June 2026

What if a psychic told you that you were going to move to a new country and have transformative, unexpected adventures at 65?

You might get excited.

What if the new country was old age? And the unexpected adventures involved swollen ankles, slower walking, bad hearing, worn-out knees, deteriorating eyesight, reduced sex drive, and ageism.

You might get scared.

Old age is an undiscovered country. And we can name it exciting, or we can be miserable. It’s our choice. But let’s not choose miserable and live the last 30 years of our lives in a cold, grey dictatorship of hopelessness.

One person’s problem is another’s solution. Sixty-five is not the beginning of the end. It’s when new vistas open up, and the slower pace of life reveals new opportunities if we can get out of our heads, open our eyes, and see.

If we can ignore all the old age stereotypes our culture has spoon-fed us since we were children, we will be open to the hidden opportunities old age brings. I am growing and doing new things at 81, and I know many of you are too.

I started when I hit 76.

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In the first weeks of the pandemic lockdown in February 2020, I began changing my life. If it hadn’t been for COVID-19, I don’t think the changes would have been possible.

The worldwide pandemic that killed millions was a blessing to me. It seemed like the world was meditating. The city was almost deserted, and people dressed like bank robbers in masks darted here and there on the San Francisco streets. People were scared, but I was hopeful.

Time had stopped, and it was the perfect time for me to get some things done that I had been avoiding all my life. I wanted to become a writer, but I was afraid.

I was afraid of what people would say about me. My whole life up to that time had been about me and what people would say about me if I poked my head up and spoke my words from my heart. If I did that, Internet snipers would shoot me down, I thought. It’s no exaggeration to say I was terrified of writing in public.

Something else I had been wanting to do for years was to meditate daily. To establish a seven-day-a-week meditation practice at home. I was sure something good would happen, and my life would change for the better if I did that. I had certainty that meditation was the right path, but I had been unable to do it daily up to then.

Years before, I took a year-long course called Establishing the Path of Practice, aimed at helping people develop a home meditation practice, and I loved it — but I did not successfully establish a home meditation practice, even though I had been studying Zen for 25 years.

It seemed impossible.

I decided to meditate daily during the 2020 lockdown. I had the time. I had a generous, government-subsidized unemployment income and a pandemic loan. If I were ever to become a meditator, now was the time.

Come hell or high water, I would become a meditator, and I would become a writer! I felt 100 percent committed. And mind you, this was the time of life when I was supposed to go gently into that good night of retirement, like a good little senior. Move to a retirement community and play pickleball, I guess.

No way I was going to do that.

Meditation and writing are deeply connected; I didn’t realize how my daily meditation would help me overcome my fear of writing. I wanted to write, and I wanted to meditate, and I thought writing and meditation were separate things, but I found out they are deeply entangled.

One of the most important things I learned from meditation is that my thoughts are not me. And I don’t necessarily have to believe them. One thought that had me in its grip was “I am afraid to write.” I accepted and believed that thought wholeheartedly. It played me like a violin.

Meditation teaches us, while we are meditating, to not attach to our thoughts, to let them float on by like clouds in the sky. And after months of meditation practice, we begin to put this “letting go of thoughts” practice to use in our everyday life.

Meditation practice taught me that “I’m afraid to write” was not true for me at all— it was just a thought, and I could let it go. And meditation works to eliminate other self-limiting thoughts like, I can’t do algebra, I’m afraid of flying, I’m angry, I can’t remember names, I’ll never succeed at anything, I’m not a likable person, and on and on.

All those things are just thoughts in my head.

So that’s how meditation eliminated my fear of writing, reduced my anger, and increased my attention span and concentration. And made me a kinder person. I realized that one of the most important things we need to do in life is to quiet our minds.

So, that’s my story, but how can you live a happy, satisfying life in old age? There is no way I can tell you what you should do; we are all different, and my answers will not work for you. But you could start with this.

Just Begin

Choose something you would love to do and begin doing it. Jump in. Watch YouTube videos about it. Invest time and money in it and do it at least a little every day.

And most importantly, hold the thought of what you want to do in your mind every day and don’t let go of it. Wholesome thoughts are just as powerful as harmful ones. Your subconscious will give you the most powerful one.

If you want to do something, set your internal GPS to the thing you want to do and start moving toward it. If you hold that idea in your mind every day, you’ll find yourself doing things that will make it happen.

The power of your mind will give you what you concentrate on the most: fear of writing, or becoming a writer — it works both ways. Concentrate fiercely on what you want to do, and I’m convinced you will do it.

I’d love to know what you think about this.

Gary
June 2026

When The Beatles released “All You Need Is Love” in 1967 to explosive popularity, the cynics and naysayers had a field day calling it idealistic and oversimplified.

But I think “all you need is love” is the truth.

It’s not just putting a bumper sticker on your car, wearing a flower dress, or putting on a phony smile. It’s as real as your baby’s laugh, Aunt Molly’s apple pies, or your wedding ring.

You can’t find love on an X-ray or an MRI. The James Webb Space Telescope, orbiting the Sun 1 million miles from Earth, can see the first galaxies born after the Big Bang in detail, but it can’t see love.

Love is a feeling, an emotion that can’t be mass-produced, understood, or anticipated. Love happens when you least expect it. When you fall in love, the world opens up, and everything is perfect. At least that’s the case with romantic love.

But there’s a deeper kind of universal love that happens every so often in our lives, and if we quiet our minds, we make ourselves available for those moments, those peak experiences when we know everything is alright. Astronauts in the stillness of space experienced it.

Reflecting years later on the intense impact of looking back at our borderless planet from the lunar surface, Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke emphasized human unity:

“From the Moon, you don’t see any races. You don’t see any nations. You don’t see any borders. We’re all here down on Earth, and I said, we’ve gotta learn how to love one another.”
Astronaut Charlie Duke on X

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How to love one another

One of my dear readers on Medium, Shirley Willett, is 93, and always reads my articles and comments on them. And she signs off every time with, “Love to you.”

You see, as you get really old like Shirley and I, family and friends are dropping like flies, and the only thing left to sustain us is love. Love for ourselves and love for all of humanity.

John Lennon said while discussing the meaning behind the iconic Beatles hit he co-wrote, “I think if you get down to basics, whatever the problem is, it’s usually to do with love.”

Every time I read comments from my readers, I feel a great love for them because they’re going through the same things I’m experiencing in old age. Old age is a strict teacher, but we all just do the best we can.

And as we get into our 70s, 80s, and 90s, we have fewer and fewer close family and friends. But platforms like Medium and Substack are great places to find other seniors who are looking for support and information on how to navigate this fascinating life stage.

So my writing on Medium and Substack is my expression of love. The love of writing and the love of all the seniors out there reading me and commenting on my essays.

Your comments are what sustain me — let me know whether or not I’m hitting the target with my essays. And I love the comments because they’re so kind and thoughtful — some are 200–300 words long, almost articles in themselves.

I have never in my life felt this kind of community, and I’m glad I have the opportunity to contribute to the steadily growing senior communities on Medium and Substack.

Substack serves a mostly young audience. It has over 35 million monthly active subscribers and 5 million paid subscribers, most of whom are aged 22–44. I can’t find any statistics for how many are 65 and up, but since Substack has 35 million subscribers, there must be quite a lot of us.

Medium has approximately 1 million paid subscribers and over 50 million active monthly users (including both free and registered readers). Five percent are aged 65 and up on Medium.

I know I don’t have any trouble finding you. And there are a lot of seniors who are writing on Substack and Medium as well. Readers or writers, we are all playing our part in educating people on what it is like to grow old and continue to thrive in spite of our age.

We know that old age is not the end — it’s another beginning, a brand new beginning in which we can continue to change and grow as we did in our youth. My writing is my love and my message about old age.

All You Need Is Love was released 59 years ago, and we should stop thinking of it as a Summer of Love artifact — but an urgent message for us to adopt today.

Gary
May 2026

One damn thing:

I was 75 when I first noticed I was walking funny.

I wasn’t ambling energetically with confidence; it felt more like stumbling. My walking and running always had a steady cadence, like a good drummer in a band, laying down the rhythm for my life.

That day, when I was walking across the street on my way to the bank, I suddenly noticed my gait was missing a few beats. I was a polka band. The way I was moving was off, and the range of motion in my neck was minimized, so that I had to turn my body to look both ways before crossing the street, instead of just turning my head.

I realized that day that I was really getting old, that other people would notice, and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. I was going to have to accept it.

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Another damn thing:

I first learned the value of acceptance at 68, when I finally accepted the stone-cold fact that I had become a senior. I was reluctantly pulled into old age by my therapist. One day, she asked me if I wanted to join the weekly seniors group she ran.

I told her I would think about it.

But inside, I am whining like a toddler whose toys have been taken away. Waaa, I don’t want to be a senior. I don’t want to be old. I want to stay young, forever young . . . I don’t want to change, I don’t want pain, I don’t want a cane, especially the cane.

It took me a few days to come out of my denial. I joined the seniors group, and that acceptance of acceptance changed my life. For one thing, it’s why I am a writer at 81. It’s why I write about aging. I learned that I can change and grow, even in my seventies and eighties. I learned that old age is not the end — it’s another kind of beginning if you accept it.

Another damn thing:

I was accepting four days ago when I was lying on my back on the floor with my legs propped up on a chair for 20 minutes.

My ankles are swollen with edema, and Marina and I will be flying to Germany a month from now, and I’m worried. And I only have a month to make it better.

I’m embarrassed by the swelling and want to do something about it. I have an appointment with my doctor in a week to make sure it is what I think it is: venous insufficiency. This is a fairly common ailment among older folks. My veins are struggling to send blood efficiently from my legs back up to the heart.

Instead of flowing upward, gravity is causing the blood to leak backward and pool in my legs. Hence, I need to walk and elevate my legs above my heart every day.

I’m a worrier, so I‘m trying not to exaggerate this into a life-threatening illness in my mind while I wait to see my doctor. I tend to make cancers out of hangnails. My doctor has told me what I need to do before my appointment. She said in an email that I should walk daily, cut down on salt and alcohol, or quit drinking altogether. And elevate my legs four times a day.

That was three days ago, and this is my fourth day of increased walking and elevating my legs twice a day for 20 minutes. My ankles are already less swollen — 60 percent better. It’s not going to be a disaster, I’m not going to die of swollen ankles.

Acceptance is my go-to strategy. Whatever a problem pops up — and in old age they will, like a jack-in-the-box. If I, instead of running away, just accept what’s happening and then take action to improve it, things get better.

Acceptance is not giving up — it’s getting in touch with what’s actually happening now and taking action, as I did with my swollen ankles.

It’s getting in touch with Reality.

Acceptance is the way for me now

In my weekly seniors group (a new one), someone brought up acceptance, and some people didn’t understand it. They think that acceptance is always a negative reaction to a problem. They view it as giving up. That’s not acceptance in the spiritual sense.

One of my favorite spiritual teachers, Pema Chödrön, in an interview with Ezra Klein of The New Your Times a week ago, expanded further on acceptance.

It’s not acceptance exactly. It’s [being] willing to be there fully and completely with whatever it is that you’re feeling — with an unconditional warmth toward whatever you’re feeling.

Instead of saying, as I often do, that accepting your age is necessary in order to have a better old age. What if I say

Be willing to be there fully and completely with whatever it is you’re feeling about old age — and then do something about it.

That takes the “giving up” inference out of acceptance. Acceptance, in the Buddhist sense, never means quitting.

Meditation:

Be willing to be there fully and completely with whatever it is you’re feeling in the moment.

Meditation is the foundation of acceptance in my life. Meditation is an exercise in acceptance. It is the practice of accepting the present moment for what it is, instead of remaining tangled up in my thoughts.

I meditate with my attention on the present, my mind wanders, and I bring my attention back to the present. It’s simple, but it ain’t always easy. The idea of meditation is to, as Pema Chödrön advised, just be there fully and completely with an unconditional warmth toward whatever it is you’re feeling.

The even harder part about meditation is to take what you learn in meditation out into your everyday life. Can you “Just be there fully and completely with an unconditional warmth toward whatever it is you’re feeling — when you’re with your family at Thanksgiving dinner?

Or in the workplace?

Or in your book club?

Or in your marriage?

Or when you’re with your children?

As I said, accepting ain’t easy, but if you use it in your life, acceptance is the power that will make you stronger.

Gary
May 2026

We all want to be happy.

The problem is that we look for happiness in material things and exciting experiences, but that rarely works. Your nice house may burn down, disease may strike, divorce may happen, and vacations will end.

But there is a place within you where everything is all right. Where you don’t regret the past or dread the future. It is so close you can’t find it— it has no monetary value — yet it’s priceless.

It’s the present moment.

It’s the silence between your thoughts. It’s the sudden stillness that comes in an emergency, or when someone dies. It’s when your world becomes silent, and you listen in wonder.

It’s when you realize you are not your thoughts. You are the unchanging part of yourself that’s always there from the time you were a baby.

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Who doesn’t fall in love with a baby? It’s always the center of attention because it’s simply itself. It has no concept of time — every moment is the present moment for a baby. And it has no concepts, ideas, or language to label things, as grownups do.

Can you be more like a baby? Can you look out through your eyes and see the world brand new? I doubt I could see with the unfiltered view of a baby. But when I am simply myself without the overlay of my thoughts, I enjoy each moment.

But when I am constantly comparing and mansplaining things, I lose the present moment because my thoughts won’t shut up.

The past 12 months have been very hard for me. Worry about my grown daughter has consumed me, beaten me down, and saddened me. I was understandably worried, but it made the past 12 months the hardest time of my life.

Now the situation with her has calmed down. She has her divorce settlement money, so I’m not worried about her being homeless. But her state of mind is still not good. I have to accept that, and it’s not going to get better until she sees a therapist and/or receives medication. I love my daughter, but I’m not going to sacrifice my life to her.

I’m moving on and taking care of myself. I’m exercising every other day and have recovered my daily meditation habit.

My life is better, but I’m still not at peace, even though I’m beginning to feel the effect of my new chair exercise program and my return to meditation.

There are many ways to invite the present moment, like yoga, tai chi, walking, and many more. But the one I’m most familiar with is meditation: the art of doing nothing.

Meditation is not a search for the present moment. Our bodies are already in the present, but we get so distracted by our thoughts of the past and the future that we can’t see the immediate reality in which we live.

We meditate to unite our mind and body in the present. When my mind quiets down, it becomes a clear lake. The haze of thought lifts like the overcast when the sun comes out.

The art of doing nothing

The purpose of meditation is to do nothing, get out of your head, lay down your troubles, relax, and enjoy the moment.

But doing nothing is difficult. We’re not wired for it. Not being a productive member of society is almost a crime. To get something we want, we have to work hard for it, we’re told.

We’re wired for doing, doing, and more doing. And that’s fine for holding down a job and making money to support ourselves and our families. We all want to do that, but we also want to be happy.

One of the best ways to discover the source of your happiness is to meditate. But when you meditate, you’ll find your mind doesn’t want to do nothing — it wants to do something, ANYTHING. It will go on strike, carrying a picket sign saying, “Just Do It.”

Meditation is hard at first.

What to do?

First of all, don’t meditate unless you really want to. Find another way to be present. Plant a garden or go for a walk. Forcing yourself to meditate will not help. But being aware of what meditators do, and how you can apply those principles to everyday life, might help.

How to meditate in three steps

1. Sit quietly and observe your breathing, your body sitting, and everything inside and outside yourself — without judging them or commenting on them, just notice the whole experience.

2. When your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your body and repeat as many times as necessary.

3. Do not worry about your wandering mind; that’s what our minds want to do. When your mind wanders, bring it back. That’s the simple process of meditation.

That’s all I need to tell you. It’s up to you to try it. No one can meditate for you, and a book can’t teach you. Meditation is like playing the piano. You can only learn by practicing it every day.

And if meditation is not your jam, take a walk and apply the above three steps. Focus your mind on your walking. When your mind starts wandering, bring your attention back to your walking as many times as necessary. And don’t worry about your wandering mind, just bring it back to your walking and enjoy the moment.

Whatever you’re doing, keep bringing your attention back to the present moment. To the stillness beneath your thoughts. To the quiet space where you realize that your thoughts are not you.

The real you is the unchanging part that’s always been there from the moment you were born. It’s always content and always happy. It’s why many older people say (no matter how old they are) they still feel young inside. Ask yourself:

Who is it that’s looking through my eyes?

Gary
May 2026

This is a stupid article, isn’t it?

Of course, mindfulness can prevent falls. Everyone knows that, you might say.

Sure, you know it when you’re in your armchair reading about it. But do you remember it when you’re crossing the street or deciding to walk up a dangerous staircase?

Do you remember in the heat of the moment?

That is the question.

Rehearsing mindfulness in a daily practice helps you remember it in the rush of your life.

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He was 74 and decided to climb the stairs in a house under renovation, on which the balustrade was not yet installed. On the way down, he tripped, fell, and died instantly.

Peter was one of my massage clients. I used to give him a shiatsu massage every Saturday. He was in excellent health, wealthy, single, and well-loved by his friends and family. That accident was a tragedy that didn’t need to happen.

Why didn’t he stop, look, and decide that the unfinished staircase was unsafe and not go up? If he had, he’d probably be alive today, 13 years later at 87.

One simple decision — one tiny moment would have saved Peter. With the deepest respect to my old friend, I believe his fall was a lapse in mindfulness. If he had just stopped for a second, and... well, he didn’t.

Rest in peace, Peter.

What is mindfulness

Mindfulness is looking both ways before you cross the street. It’s paying attention.

It takes mindfulness to drive a car, eat lunch, talk to somebody, write an email, or make breakfast. We need to be mindful when we do these things, or we wouldn’t be able to accomplish them at all.

But a closer look reveals that we are not fully there when we do them — our minds are somewhere else. While we’re cracking our breakfast eggs, we’re worrying about our finances. A photo would show us preparing breakfast, but would not show our absent minds.

Mindfulness originates with the Buddha, in his first teaching after enlightenment, the Noble Eightfold Path, which his monks follow to liberate themselves from suffering and achieve enlightenment.

Mindfulness is being purposefully aware, without judgment, of what’s happening in your mind, your body, and your environment in the present moment — this is what meditators do on their cushions.

Although I have been practicing Zen for 25 years, I didn’t start meditating daily until I was 75 (six years ago), and it blew my life wide open. Not in the sense of enlightenment, but Daily meditation began to soften me and change me in important ways.

It resulted in improved concentration, better attention span, and less stress, anxiety, and worry. And I didn’t have to perform any special techniques in order to bring about the improvements. They slowly manifested from my simple daily practice of being aware, without judgment, in the present moment.

What I do

I sit quietly, aware of the room around me, my body, and my feelings, without judging them. The without judgment part is key — I just notice what’s happening within me and outside me, without layering my thoughts on top.

Anyone can do this, whether you’re sitting formally on a meditation cushion or in a comfortable chair by the window, having a cup of tea. Just notice what’s happening in and around you without judging it.

When I notice my mind has wandered off somewhere, I bring my attention back to my body. I’ll do this many times in 30 minutes. My thoughts are clouds, and I’m just watching them float by.

You can do this too, meditating casually, looking out the window. When your thoughts wander, bring them back. Who’s to say that’s not meditation? And if you do it regularly, you’ll realize you can also do it in line at the grocery store, at the airport, or in conversation with a friend.

You can just BE in those situations without pulling out your phone to distract yourself from the reality around you. And when your mind wanders, you’ll bring it back to the task at hand. Mindfulness is being fully present in life.

Recent I came to a stop at a crosswalk and watched a young man cross the street in front of me while texting on his phone, and he didn’t take his eyes off his phone the whole way. I wanted to yell out my car window, WAKE UP!

Facts about falls from the AARP

For adults 65 and older:

• Falls are the leading cause of injury and injury-related death.

• More than 95 percent of hip fractures are caused by falling.

• Falls are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries.

Source: CDC

How to avoid accidents and falls

My number one fear as an older adult is the fear of falling. A fall to the sidewalk that a young skateboarder would find mildly annoying could send me to the hospital. The same goes for an auto accident or a bicycle fall.

Recently, on vacation, I had the opportunity to hop on a bike and take a little ride around an RV camp, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew if I fell off the bike, I could injure myself severely. I have decided that riding a bike is just another one of those fun activities I need to give up. This is my decision, based on my age and the shape I’m in.

Was that fear of bike riding an irrational fear? Maybe getting on a bike again would rid me of that fear, a part of me says. But my mindful self knows that if I fall, I’ll injure my hand or arm trying to break the fall, and incur more injuries when my body hits the asphalt. If my head hits the road and I’m not wearing a helmet, it’s deadly serious.

To quit bike riding is my decision. I know there are people out there in their 80s right now, riding their bikes and having fun. But everybody is different, and this body is not getting on a bike anymore.

Better decisions

Once in my tai chi class, the teacher was demonstrating some self-defense moves. And I asked him, But what if you meet a robber in a dark alley and he pulls a gun on you? What good are these self-defense moves then?

A tai chi teacher wouldn’t walk down a dark alley, he replied.

And a mindful person will not ride a bike if their intuition is telling them it might be unsafe. A mindful person will not walk up a staircase that doesn’t have a banister. A mindful person doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about what they should or shouldn’t do. A mindful person makes decisions based on reality on the ground, not solely in the thoughts in their head or what someone else tells them.

Mindlessness has consequences. In 1967, in the Air Force in the Philippines, I went to the firing range for my yearly evaluation and forgot to put on the ear protectors, and now, almost 60 years later, I still suffer from tinnitus — because of that bad decision.

Being mindful means making better decisions. Deciding not to walk up a particular staircase that looks dangerous, even if everyone else you’re with is doing it. Mindfulness is deciding to take the elevator. Mindfulness is deciding not to jaywalk. Mindfulness is not using your phone while walking.

Mindfulness is deciding not to get into a political argument in a bar or flip the bird at someone from your car. Mindfulness results in better decisions because your mind is clear and calm.

It could save your life.

Gary
May 2025

This morning, I woke up to another beautiful day.

The rising sun burned through the San Francisco fog, the birds sang their morning songs — and I didn’t have to ask for this day — it was freely given for my enjoyment. All I had to do was open my eyes and ears.

I should be grateful I have eyes to see and ears to hear. Some people don’t. But I don’t always appreciate this feast of miracles that has been on my table for 81 years. I’m like the fish that, when asked, How’s the water? said, What’s water?

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I have been swimming in the miracle for so long that I no longer see it or appreciate it. For example, Marina and I live on a hill in San Francisco, and when we first moved in 30 years ago, we were awed by the view, the colorful houses on the hills, and the amazing sunsets.

Now it’s only when guests visit us — and the first thing they say when they walk through the door is, Wow! Look at that view — that we remember where we live and really appreciate it. We all do this to some degree. We’re no longer awed by a cat on the windowsill or a wildflower growing from the sidewalk. Those little miracles become ordinary.

If we stop living in our heads and rediscover our bodies (which are always in the present), we can see more clearly and live more enjoyably in the present.

This is the only moment we have

This present moment is the most valuable gift that we can ever receive. Whether we are a billionaire or a pauper, everyone gets the same allotment: one moment.

The question is, do you realize its value and appreciate it? The past is only memories, and the future is only a thought in our heads. We exist in the eternal moment, the here and now, although we feel there are many moments.

There is no way to guarantee we will wake up tomorrow. We should be grateful we’ve made it this far, but we take it for granted. If we are 80, maybe we have 10 or 20 more years. We should be flabbergasted by those numbers. We are lucky to be so old.

If you think about it, we are lucky to be alive at any age. If we are not grateful, it’s because we haven’t realized the value of the gift we’ve received. If we won millions of dollars in the lottery, we’d be grateful; we’d be over the moon with thankfulness because we would know the value of the gift.

But we take the present moment for granted.

Every moment we get is like winning the lottery, and it’s much more valuable than that. We don’t always notice those moments. When we fully experience one of those gifted moments, it will live in our memory forever, because those golden moments of grace are a connection with the One, the Tao, dare I say, God? The mind slows down, and there you are in a quiet world you never expected that will shine forever in your memory because you were fully present for it.

There are three types of given moments in my experience.

Everyday moments

Most of the time, we are living in our heads. Our thoughts are having a dialogue with one another, while we miss the reality right in front of us. We live our lives through our thoughts. When we look at a tree, we don’t really experience the tree; we experience our thoughts about the tree.

Is it an oak tree? Is it native to this area? How old is it? What species of oak is it? It’s like the one I saw in central California. Those were so beautiful, on and on. We don’t realize we are living like this. It’s normal for us.

To really see and appreciate the tree, we need to see it as a toddler would see it — without any knowledge of a tree whatsoever. To see a tree like that would be a psychedelic experience for most adults. So the first kind of everyday moment is the kind created in our heads.

But there are moments when we look around and notice where we are and what we’re doing.

Mindful moments

Living in the moment, I may decide not to go on a strenuous hike or walk down a steep sidewalk because I’m 81 and know it might be dangerous. Not going on the hike may set me apart from others and cause me to feel left out.

But if I’m weighing my decision based on an accurate assessment of the terrain and the risk, not what my thoughts say I SHOULD be doing, I’m living in the moment. Staying in the moment as a senior may prevent falls and maybe even save my life.

Living in my head, I might opt to tough it out, not be a baby, and forge ahead as if I’m still 50. This is the danger of living in my head. I may still feel young inside, but I have an old body. I need to take care to know the difference between my physical age and my psychological age lest I hurt myself.

Finally, there are the mindful moments I experience in my formal meditation practice. Meditation is a kind of mind training, where day by day I practice getting out of my head into the present, bang on. right here! moment reality.

Transcendent moments

It’s a late Friday afternoon in the mid-80s, and I am walking with my girlfriend, Kathy, on Geary Street, the sun dipping into the Pacific Ocean behind us. We walked out to Ocean Beach and are on our way back to our neighborhood in the Sunset District of West San Francisco.

And suddenly it’s perfect.

The setting sun is transforming everything around us in this very ordinary neighborhood of Chinese Restaurants and neighborhood businesses into golden light. I am in the perfect place at the perfect time with the perfect person.

I look through the open door of a typical SF dive bar filled with neighborhood people drinking, laughing, and getting buzzed on a Friday night. I watch these citizens enjoying themselves, and feel a great affinity with them; I am one of them, and they are one with me.

This transendent moment probably lasted less than five minutes, but I still remember it vividly 40 years later. Through no effort of my own, I was thrust into the present moment — the drab streets, corner stores, bakeries, and auto parts shops were Shangri-La.

I was content and at peace. It was a totally subjective experience, and there is no way I can repeat it or give it to anyone else. Something opened up in me, and I got a glimpse of how the world could be. Beautiful. Perfect. That moment was a gift — every moment is a gift — that’s why we call it the present.

Gary
April 2025

Thriving in old age is an inside job —a positive attitude that makes the critical difference.

Is getting old depressing for you? Or is it an opportunity? How you view old age is critical. Yes, diet and exercise are important. But a great diet and a toned body at 75 are not enough if you have a negative attitude.

I’ve always been an optimist, except for my ideas about aging. I was 68 before I realized I was a senior and accepted my age.

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It happened when, in 2012, my therapist asked me if I wanted to join a seniors’ group, and I was greatly offended. I am not a senior, I said to myself. My mind was full of negative stereotypes about older people, and I didn’t want to become one.

Senile, slow, grey, sick, grumpy, frail, and over the hill are just a few examples of the old age stereotypes — or everyday ageism, as one study called it.

There is a ton of research about how our attitude toward aging affects our health and how long we live. We start absorbing all the negative stereotypes about old age when we are children, and by the time we are grown, they are living rent-free in our heads— until we learn to tell the difference between stereotypes and reality.

A Harvard study concludes that people who have the highest satisfaction with their own aging have a 43% lower risk of dying from any cause over four years compared with those who were the least satisfied. People with more positive attitudes about growing old tend to live longer and healthier lives than those with negative thoughts about aging.

A 2002 Yale University study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that older adults with a positive self-perception of aging lived an average of 7.5 years longer than those with a more negative outlook.

It’s clear that our attitudes about old age affect our health and longevity. How can we get from negative to positive?

The road forward

I have been writing about old age for six years, and I will continue to do it because I love it. I don’t seem to run out of ideas to write about, even in such a narrow lane as aging. I’m fully engaged with the adventure and looking forward to it. I have a positive view of aging.

Before I accepted the fact that I was old, I had a victim mentality about life. I felt life was something that happened to me, not something I could control and direct. When I accepted old age, I was, of necessity, accepting myself as I was — something I had never really done before. That was a major turning point in my life.

At 75, I started writing and fell in love with it. Turns out writing has become my life purpose — it fulfills me, and it helps other older people as well. It is something I can do that is a unique expression of myself.

Old and retiring

After our kids are grown and we’ve put down our career responsibilities, we need to find a replacement for that old life purpose. Because without a life purpose, living becomes as dull as a rock. Our life purpose is something that gets us out of bed in the morning, eager to get going.

If you can find a new purpose to replace your previous working life purpose, you’ll thrive in old age. My life purpose became writing about old age and mindfulness. I want to keep doing it and get better and better at it. I love it, and I’d do it for free if I had to. I no longer have a victim mentality. I have taken charge. Meet the new boss, different from the old boss.

I have no idea what your life purpose should be, except that it should be something you love. It might be your grandchildren, and spending as much time as possible with them. Or your purpose might be something you did in your youth that you gave up in order to go to college, find a job, or start a family.

Whatever you choose, make sure it’s something you love.

It takes a village to raise a senior

Here’s how to proceed — get out of your head and into reality.

Don’t philosophize about aging, batting ideas and thoughts around without ever coming to a conclusion. Talking to other people instead of talking to yourself is a good way to begin. Scientific studies have shown that having a network of friends and family is one of the best predictors of a long life.

Monday, I joined a seniors’ group of 20 people that is run by two therapists at my HMO. My first meeting was great — it was freewheeling and feisty.

Now, I’ve got 20 new friends, a place to express myself every Monday, and most importantly, to be empathetic toward a wide variety of older people. We help one another.

The intelligence of everyday older people is not widely known because most of us keep to ourselves. I’m sure this group will be a helpful community for me. I need to get out of the house and connect with people in person because it takes a village to raise a senior.

Gary
April 2026

I believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. From the moment of birth, every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering.
 — His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness

If the Dalai Lama’s words are true, and I believe they are, we are all fundamentally the same. For some of us, happiness is a glass of wine at 5 p.m. For others, it’s a Ford F-150 pickup truck or an In-N-Out Burger with cheese.

Looking for love, sex, or money is a major preoccupation. We dream of winning the lottery or just paying the rent. Or a hot date. But there is one thing that unites us all — we all want to be happy and avoid suffering. And it’s always been like that. The Buddha taught this 2,500 years ago, and we are still looking for happiness in all the wrong places.

We think the happiness we seek is just around the corner in the future, but we will never find it there. The meaning of life and the secret to happiness is in this old story about a bar that had a sign that said, “Free Beer Tomorrow.”

A customer would come into the bar and say, I was here yesterday and noticed your sign, so I came in for my free beer, and the bartender would just point to the sign.

You’ll never be happy in the future; you can only be happy now! The more we realize this, the happier we will be. I believe living in the now is the most important thing we can do to thrive in old age. I’ve spent six years pondering old age and death because I write almost exclusively about them. And I learn a lot from my readers.

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One told me about his mother’s 90-year-old husband, who has been in poor health for ten years. The 90-year-old says his frustration is having a young mind trapped in a body that no longer responds. I can relate to that.

My reader agreed and told me he believes that’s where the suffering exists. “To want to travel and have experiences but needing to stay close to the specialists treating your broken body and being hyper aware your end is near would be torture,” he said.

And there it is — the trapdoor to unhappiness.

If I am in the hospital, staying close to the specialists treating my broken body and being hyper aware that my end may be near is exactly what I need to be doing — not dreaming of travel to far-away places.

There is beauty in the present moment, no matter how old you are or where you are. At the end of our lives, we can end up repeating the same thing we’ve always done — longing for happiness in all the wrong places, while forgetting it’s in our heart — the only place we can find it.

A Zen Hospice worker told me about a man who became radiant and content during the last weeks of his life. He reversed the normal hospice situation of being comforted by his caregivers and became a comfort to them. He enjoyed his simple meals of broth or yogurt and was satisfied watching the breeze gently move the curtains in his window. He had fully accepted his situation and was living those words of wisdom that said: “Wherever you go, there you are.”

Was that dying man happy? Maybe that’s not the best word for it — he was content. He had accepted what he had, rather than longing for something in the future that was not going to happen.

I have been doing this distorted, delayed gratification thinking for a full year regarding my daughter. My feeling was that I had to wait until my daughter resolved her precarious situation before I could get on with my life. I needed to sacrifice my immediate needs for her, because that was my responsibility as a father, I thought.

But I may not have time in the future to really enjoy myself. This is probably the most common mistake we make — waiting for some time in the future to travel, or do that special thing we can’t do now because we think we’re not ready, or too busy.

Do that special thing now — at least get started, because tomorrow never comes.

When that time you call tomorrow comes, it will be today, and today is where we live. So do that thing, make that phone call, have that hard conversation, begin that project now. Take the first step today, even if it’s a small one.

“The journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath your feet,” is a line from the Tao Te Ching I heard long before I meditated or practiced Zen. That line of wisdom always had a deep resonance for me because I’ve always been lazy and prone to procrastination. I needed a philosophical prod.

I used my daughter’s situation as an excuse for neglecting my meditation, my writing, and being present for my wife and friends, and my life in general. And I felt fully justified while doing it. But it’s possible to handle many difficult things in life and not neglect yourself. — I know people who do it every day. My wife, for example.

And there is only one way to pull that off —be fully where you are, wherever you are.

We all want to find happiness, and we can only find it HERE.

Gary
April 2026

I feel like I’ve aged five years in the past 12 months.

Don’t get me wrong, old age is going well for me, and I want to live a long time. I want to squeeze every last drop of juice from the orange, whether it’s at home or in an ICU. I’m positive about old age. But still . . .

Eighty-one is carrying a backpack of rocks up the stairs. Eighty-one is seeing a stranger in the mirror. Eighty-one is being unable to run for your connecting flight at the Airport. Eighty-one is being all dressed up with nowhere to go, or somewhere to go with nothing to wear.

Old age is just one damn thing after another, and it will never get better — but have hope — our perception of old age can get better. We will have pain in old age, but to quote Haruki Murakami: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

The ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus said, “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. This is a truth that will soften any number of problems if taken to heart.

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Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional, should be our motto in old age, because there will be pain. If one morning, a young person woke up in my body, he would immediately call a doctor. But old age comes on slowly, so we don’t see it coming until one day we “suddenly” realize we are old.

The story of the rest of my life will be how I react to all the changes life throws at me. And that’s good because I’ll always have a motivating force to push me on.

Dealing with the slings and arrows of old age gives me a reason to keep going. To find creative solutions and find love with my friends and family. And to remember that suffering is a choice. If I could figure out how to eliminate suffering in old age and bottle it, I’d be a billionaire.

There will be pain, but I’m hopeful

I have been suffering for the past 12 months, worrying about my daughter, who, because of her unwillingness to accept her divorce, was suffering too, and was on the verge of homelessness. She has finally received her divorce settlement, and the worry about homelessness is gone. But her state of mind is still not good. And I am in the process of letting go of my suffering around her.

But I have no regrets about my anguish and suffering over her. I did whatever I had to do to keep her off the streets. Tomorrow I’ll have my first therapy appointment, and I am hopeful I can let go of my suffering and get on with my own life. I’ll be more useful to my daughter in that state of mind.

But my long year of anguish is not unusual. In your old age, you’ll have such periods, whether it’s your own health or the pain of others you love. Everyone, without exception, will have pain and difficulties in old age.

And we should not be surprised when bad things happen to good people. Whatever your definition of old age, you will have pain once you’re old. Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, tried to warn his students about all the coming pain, but he did it kindly and with humor.

On the fourth day of sesshin, as we sat with our painful legs, aching backs, hopes and doubts about whether it was worth it, Suzuki Roshi began his talk by saying slowly, ‘The problems you are now experiencing . . .”

“Will go away,” we were sure he was going to say

“... will continue for the rest of your life,” he concluded.

The way he said it, we all laughed.

Suzuki Roshi’s wisdom was a hard truth wrapped in humor. We should live our lives wrapped in humor. My tai chi teacher once said, Once your legs are gone, the end is near. Well, once your sense of humor is gone, the end is here. You may be stoically carrying on with a stiff upper lip, but all the joy of life will have been sucked out.

You’ve gotta laugh about old age, which is like boarding a ship that’s setting out to sea to sink. Without humor, it’s a grim scenario.

But if we know that all that suffering is optional, we can live a little lighter and breathe a little easier.

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Gary
April 2026

One of my readers, who’s also a writer, emailed me today while I was sitting at my desk, staring into space, wondering what I was going to write next. He wanted to know how I approach my craft and have a conversation about writing.

So I decided to answer him, and it became this essay.

I began writing publicly at 75. Before that, I had written brochures and other marketing materials for Hewlett-Packard and other companies. I learned to put sentences together and how to express Hewlett-Packard’s point of view. That was the extent of my writing before I began writing online six years ago.

I don’t normally write about writing. I’m a beginner, still finding my way, and I’m not ready to teach anyone about the craft of writing. But in my six years at the laptop, I have learned how writing is transforming me. Writing is teaching me who I am, what I think about the world, and my place in it. Writing brings me into the present tense, more in touch with my body, which is always in the present.

Writing about my life has forced me to own up and take responsibility for my life in ways I wasn’t doing before writing. I hope this is useful for you and will motivate you to write down your life and discover more about who you are.

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What I Don’t Write

I love to talk about writing, and I can only approach it from the type of writing I do. Let me start by saying what I don’t write. I don’t write journalism, or the type of writing that is backed up by experts, scientific studies, or the news. I’m just not good at that kind of writing, plus I don’t find it interesting to write like that, although I love to read it.

I don’t write fiction.

I don’t write poetry — yet.

Whenever I read an article based on a new scientific study about, say, what foods older people should eat to be healthy, I find myself arguing with it because scientists try to isolate the particular food they’re studying, and life isn’t like that.

You can’t isolate anything in the health space; everything’s connected, so it’s hard to say that one food is really having a big impact. It’s what you eat over the weeks, months, and years that’s important — A balanced diet, not what you eat on any given day. It’s not only what you eat, but it’s also where you eat it, how you eat it, and who you eat it with.

An Old Guy with A Laptop

Basically, I write about old age and mindfulness from the first-person point of view of an old guy with a laptop. My favorite kind of article has no citations or references to scientific studies, or at least very few. Basically, I choose a topic and write about it from my subjective point of view. Like, “The Truth About Being 80 That Few People Know.”

I write articles with a four-to-eight-minute read time. I wish I could write 18-minute reads, but I’m not yet skilled enough to do that and keep the reader from clicking away or falling asleep.

I recall a quote from Blaise Pascal: “I have made this [letter] longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.” People have amazingly short attention spans, so I keep to short formats. I’m amazed by people like Murakami who write 800-page novels — that sell.

Here are the main things I try to do in my writing.

I try to be vulnerable and authentic. That’s what people reading on Substack and Medium want to read. They don’t want to read someone posturing and pontificating while revealing nothing about themselves. They want me to be real. It has taken me three-to-five years to develop my writer’s voice. If you write long enough, your writer’s voice will surface. It’s exciting for me to see that happening.

I stick to a very small niche: ageing and mindfulness, written from my personal experience. I consider myself an expert at meditation, and of course at 81, an expert at being old. I stick to my knitting. And size matters — I believe the smaller your niche, the easier it is to produce quality writing.

I write as I talk, as if I were having a pint with you and holding forth on something about which I’m passionate, like what is consciousness? Or how your thoughts affect how you experience old age.

You cannot separate the mind from the body. They interact in ways we cannot fully explain. That’s what fascinates me, and I like to speculate and add my five cents about it in my writing.

I write about the mind and how it affects our lives.

If You Want to Write, You’ve Got To Read

I read a lot on Substack and Medium. And my mentors come mainly from the world of fiction. One of my biggest influences is Haruki Murakami. I have read everything he’s written. And I am currently reading “Vigil” by George Sanders. I‘m enjoying that book.

I love playing with simile and metaphor. In Murakami’s work, almost every paragraph contains a metaphor or simile. Writing is more than presenting facts and opinions. I like to bring the element of surprise into my sentences. As I’m writing this, I realize I could use more metaphors in my writing — because I believe our lives are metaphors for something — and I want to find out what.

I just realized that, strangely, my writing is also greatly influenced by watching talking heads on MS NOW and various YouTube shows like “Inside Trump’s Head,” with Michael Wolff and Joanna Coles. And Pivot, with Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher. I love to watch articulate people winging it live on the screen. I learn a lot about how to express myself from them.

My Naked Mind

Finally, I love the process of writing. Today, I was frustrated because I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to write about, until a random guy asked me a question about writing, and I was off to the races. But it took six years of practice to get to a place where I could do that.

It wasn’t always like that. Seven years ago, I wanted to write, but was afraid of exposing my naked mind in public. It took me a year to gather my nerve and say publicly what was on my mind.

That fear was more than just a fear of writing. It was a fear of living fully, of taking my place at the podium of life and saying my piece. And I was afraid of death. Getting over my fear of writing has changed my life significantly. It has made me a braver and more intelligent person.

Someone said, I write in order to learn what I think.

Wise person.

Gary
March 2025